REVIEW – Vince Bell @ The White Bear, Devizes – Sunday 26th April 2026

Local Hero Plays Home-town gig shock!

by Andy Fawthrop

After the cracking weather we had all week-end, what better way to round things off than with the best of all home-town gigs with one of our local heroes Vince Bell?  So, suitably attired in t-shirt, sun-hat and sunglasses, off we toddled to one of our favourite watering holes, The White Bear, for a much-needed dose of great original songs.  Good beer and good music are all that anybody needs.  Obviously other choices were available, notably up the road at The Southgate, but for us it was a very easy choice.  Vince is, without doubt, one of our local heroes, and it had been a few months since we’d last had the chance to hear him.….

Vince’s first-half set was full of his fine self-penned songs, the lyrics coming across clear and loud, accompanied by some fine guitar work. I sometimes make the mistake of slightly under-rating his great work on the strings, but not at all yesterday. He was on absolutely superb form, carefully explaining and introducing each song, but never dwelling for too long, allowing the material to speak for itself.  The subject matter was downbeat and extremely personal, each song striking home and eliciting warm and enthusiastic appreciation from the gathering audience.

Pub gigs can sometimes be a bit weird, with some folks inclined to compete with the singer by trying to talk over the top, and spoiling it for everyone else who’s there and actually wants to listen.  Not so yesterday – the conversations gradually died down and, at times, you could almost hear a pin drop.  Great to hear an artist as good as Vince being shown some well-deserved respect. And before we knew it 45 minutes had slipped by and it was time for a top-up pint.

Chatting to Vince at half-time revealed that there were personal reasons why Vince’s mood and demeanour seemed a little low with his particular choice of songs, which I won’t go into by discussing here.  But suffice to say that the Monty Python lyric “Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it” was not an entirely inappropriate way of summarising certain feelings.  He promised us a slightly more upbeat second spasm, and so it proved to be.

Joined for most of the second set by his friend Chrissy Chapman (of Burn The Midnight Oil fame), there was some lighter material, mostly penned by her. They worked well together, both in guitar playing and in harmonising their vocals.  We were also offered a couple of covers, including (I suppose inevitably) The Stones’ “Paint It Black”, which brought a wry smile to many faces. But, yet again, another 45 minutes disappeared in no time. And then we were treated to the much demanded encore of one of Vince’s signature songs “Spiderman Pyjamas”, and the gig was suitably wrapped.

Just time for another quick pint, a short chat, then a walk home in the still-glorious sunshine. I did get the chance before leaving to tell Vince that I genuinely thought that it had been one of his best-ever gigs.  There were a lot of friends in the room, and lots of love, but I do hope that such a fine performance helped to win over a few new fans to Vince’s corner. He’s a local hero – he deserves it!

---